🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4a8j53INNraa@JAGUAR.ZOO.CS.YALE.EDU>,
Scott Horne <horne-scott@cs.yale.edu> wrote:
>Many dictionaries follow the arrangement of the _Kang1 Xi1 zi4dian3_, which
>specifies 214 radicals.  Unfortunately, many editors combine some of the
>similarly shaped and less-frequently used ones (for example, 22 and 23, or
>34 and 35) for the convenience of the ignorant reader, thus throwing off
>the numbering.

I have never seen dictionaries from Hong Kong combining radicals,
but you can also find some dictionaries swapping the ordering of
some radicals, making the ordering unreliable.

>It should be pointed out at this point that many of the radicals (this one
>is a good example) are not characters in any real sense of the word.
>Do not expect the "pronunciations" given in some dictionaries to be of
>any value.  This is true even of those radicals that are proper characters.
>Most people know that 
>
>	 -----
>	 |___|
>	-------
>	|  |  |
>	-------
>	|______/
>
>(which is Radical 163) is _yi4_, but no one would understand you if you
>referred to its combining form as _yi4 zi4 pangr2_.  The usual names,
>illiterate and deplorable though they be, are _you4'er3pangr2_ and
>_shuang1'er3pangr2_.

Ah, I agree that many of the radicals are not characters (or have ceased
to be characters), but this particular one is in fact a really bad example,
since it *is* a real word, meaning "city", and in case you don't know, it
is, though archaic, still in use (at least in novels). Also, in Hong Kong,
I wonder how many young people do not know the rule "dzO2 f@u6 j@u6 j@p1".

With respect to the pronunciatons not being meaningful, I semi-agree.
But let's look at the "latin" alphabet. Say, given the ss-ligature
(long s + normal s), or the thorn, or the eth, if no one tells you
that it is called an eszett, or a thorn, or an eth, do you know they
are thus called? Without people telling you, these "pronunciations"
are also meaningless. But thanks to desktop publishing, people will
be forced to "learn" these pronunciations. Times change. What used
to be meaningless to the public may one day become meaningful.

If you flip through the new pocket-sized student dictionaries from
Hong Kong, you will see that they all now use IPA and indicate how
the radicals are to be pronounced.  It may not have immediate impact,
but sooner or later people *will* know how the radicals are supposed
to be pronounced, and the pronunciations will take on meaning. When I
was in primary school, I was taught how to pronounce them; I don't
know how many schools do this, but there might be more people that
understands the pronunciations than you think.

-- 
Ambrose C. Li ~{@h>tHY~}
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